Removing Duplicates from iTunes playlist

Question

I am facing a problem in iTunes.

See above image.

All most each song is repeated twice in my play-list.

When I opened Finder - it was also duplicated in iTunes folder.

What is the secret problem behind this?

Have you ever faced this kind of problem?

What is the solution for this?

That is - How to remove duplicates from playlist only?

Same way - How to remove duplicates from hard-disk - iTunes directory also?

Answer 1

I don't know what you did or what happened to cause them to duplicate, but if you have duplicates in the finder it would stand to reason that they would duplicate in the playlists.

Click on the Music category (top left of iTunes) then choose the File Menu and select Show Duplicates. From there you can select all and delete (Command Delete) all of the duplicates, and move the files to the trash when prompted. This will clean the duplicates out of the iTunes folder in the Finder as well as remove them from the iTunes Library file. You can also hold down Option before selecting the File Menu and View Duplicates will change to View Exact Duplicates. Exact Duplicates may do a better job of differentiating between a studio and live version of the same song for example.

There is a Show All button at the bottom of the duplicate search to get you back to a regular view of your iTunes library.

I would recommend making a backup of entire ~/Music/iTunes folder before messing with this further.

There are certainly other ways to handle this if that doesn't look like it will give good results. I'd need a bit more info though. Are the duplicates in the same directories as their original songs or not. You can tell this by right clicking and choosing show in finder for a pair of them. Does that open two folders, or are they in the same folder, and one of the files has a space and the number 1 at the end of the file name?

Answer 2

Mac? there are some scripts/apps for this.

• Dupin (not free) does a great job at rooting out duplicates. It has 10 or so different things you can select to tell whether to keep a song or delete it.
• TidySongs (also not free) is a super awesome Adobe AIR app that not only finds and deletes duplicates automatically for you, but it can correct your song names and download album art and stuff. Sure iTunes can do that, but the Album field has to be right. I highly highly recommend that app.

The ol, show duplicates, and delete one of them method is tiring and just sucks. I bought an app and have a way cooler iTunes Library now. (Plus I love that album art on my iPhone/iPad)

Regards,

Elliott

Answer 3

You have already accepted an answer but I have a suggestion as to how it happened in the first place.

How did you import your songs?

Did you drag/drop a folder of songs into iTunes?

Did the folder also include a playlist file (.m3u or .pls)?

If so then iTunes imports each song twice, once from the file itself and once from the playlist file.

Answer 4

Two great apps that work outside iTunes and for any kind of files, but will do just as well for your "itunes playlist" as long as you have access to where it's located:

• Chipmunk have a feature to "trash all duplicates outside / inside this branch". It will simply (very, very quickly) scan through any set of folder you select for files with same date and size (and maybe hash, I'm not sure) and give you option to manually delete whichever you judge better manually or let him do its trick. It has a cool visual folder tree which will only work if there are not many folders inside each other. Bottom line, if your duplicates are not in the same folder, give this a "free well featured" try.

• TidyUp is the full featured paid solution for cleaning up duplicates. The free trial works just for 10 actions. Not really usable as a solution, but good enough to let you see how awesome this software is. It does all Chipmunk do and way more, but has a different more regular interface and it's got a much, much slower scan.

There are too many softwares out there in this field (finding and cleaning duplicates), and I really can't guarantee those are the best... But I've tried many, including the well known Araxis, and those 2 beat them all.

TidySongs seems to be really good as well, and Dupin is great. But both are way too specific and though they are a great fit for this question depending on how many, and how messed are the duplicates you have, you might find one of those 2 useful too.

Answer 5

There are a number of prorams you can utilize in order to get rid of iTunes duplicates (none of which I have had the chance to test yet - i simply use the basic iTunes function):

CopyTrans TuneTastic (free) and its iTunes duplicate remover function

SWMole Clone Remover (paid) tool for removing any duplicate files (but also could work for files in the iTunes media folder)

DupeEliminator (paid)

MediaFinder (paid)

Here is an article which shows different ways to remove iTunes duplicates which compares and provides a short summary for what each of the programs can do.